Digital content and the race to win ‘audience attention’

A recent study by Microsoft revealed human attention span has now dropped to eight seconds – shrinking nearly 25% in just a few years. And as digital content continues to proliferate, the challenge is on brands to attract and retain audiences in innovative ways. But how can brands know if they're actually winning the race to capture the attention of their target audience?

Defining 'attention' and quantifying' attention'

'Attention' as a metric today is an opportunity for clients to see the impact of their creative choices, channel splits, targeting, and so much more. It also allows them to take a brief step away from being at the mercy of a click-through rate or some other metric which may not be as relevant should their campaign not be about driving clicks to a website.

Attention as a digital metric looks at things like format, channel, targeting, length of ad, creativity within the ad, and more. It's not always about having the biggest or stickiest ad on the screen but looking at what resonates best with your audience. In some cases, we're exploring micro reactions and emotions using facial coding and eye tracking. A lot of data is used to gauge the impact of an ad.

Can 'capturing attention' translate into conversions and sales?

Absolutely, it can! We've seen time and time again the corresponding link between an increase in attention and an increase in conversions or sales. The information available now in many categories – as well as the capacity to link everything back together to a person and household – is the beauty of ad tech. It's how you can bring meaningful insights and results to your CFOs and other stakeholders.
 
If you're asking yourself, "What do I need to change to improve my KPIs?" or thinking, "I need more data to inform and optimise my strategies," then utilising attention metrics could be something to look at. Attention metrics facilitate more informed choices about how to make your campaign the best it can be.

I look forward to seeing industry standardisation with regard to defining attention as a digital metric for the sake of consistency for advertisers and vendors. (I know this is in the works.)

Attention: A vital metric in the modern ad landscape

Attention is what I would call the beginning of every great campaign. You cannot succeed with the other metrics without first getting your audience's attention. Attention as a metric funnels down and complements almost every other metric. However, you must always focus on what's most important to your campaign's success and optimise toward your key KPIs. You should not be distracted by anything else.

In the modern ad landscape and given the current challenging economic climate, reporting in general has become even more critical than ever. We need to learn what's going on to gain a competitive advantage, sell more, increase our brand recognition and favourability, and so on. The more data you have to be able to inform these choices, the quicker you are going to be able to hit your goals.